Yeh, even $9.95 looks like a lot of money to execute a $600 retail order. If you are trying to build a position, try leaving smaller below market orders toward the close. Often they will get filled although eventually, the source will dry up. Orders around $2000 to $3000 will often get filled by the low closers. But a 5000 share order say for VMS at say .31 needs to be "all or nothing" to avoid the punishment of a 500 share fill. You can however get some very cheap stock on many of the juniors this way. If you are not building the position, just ignore the silliness, there are lots of major holders who ignore the sp for weeks at a time unless there is meaningful volume.

The big positive out of the HBM deal is that long term liquidity for VMS seems much more certain, perhaps justifying larger weightings at the right cost. Eventually, as cheap retail stock runs out, those in the know must gradually step up the price to shake up some sellers. Eg move the price up say 25%, hold it there a couple days, then move it back down 10 to 15%. I believe the price is too low currently (buying opportunity) but will not move higher without some volume. As a caveat, HBM's profitability is highly geared to not just copper, but also to the Cdn $. Were Canada for some reason to materially raise rates ahead of the US (which I personally doubt) there could be protracted weakness in the Cdn minor miners as the loonie rises. All in all the biggest moving parts look to be the price and availability of copper, and the drill bit. The latter especially because of our small market cap. Good luck